i have the above stated laptop with serious bootup issues. the problem
occured when i attempted to do a disk defrag. when i did the the defrag,
it stated that "a disk defragmentation is not necessary". I proceeded to
do it anyway and it sounded like popcorn was being made. I immediately
pulled the plug, but the damage was already done(i think). I tried
starting from the operating systems CD, but it still does not start up.
I am attempting to run the recovery CD at the moment. Any other
suggestions?

I am willing to bag the disk drive, but would like to recover my
pictures from it. If that is possible.:o

Thank you in advance from a computer illiterate.:p

nj_fcon wrote:
> i have the above stated laptop with serious bootup issues. the problem
> occured when i attempted to do a disk defrag. when i did the the defrag,
> it stated that "a disk defragmentation is not necessary". I proceeded to
> do it anyway and it sounded like popcorn was being made. I immediately
> pulled the plug, but the damage was already done(i think). I tried
> starting from the operating systems CD, but it still does not start up.
> I am attempting to run the recovery CD at the moment. Any other
> suggestions?
> 
> I am willing to bag the disk drive, but would like to recover my
> pictures from it. If that is possible.:o
> 
> Thank you in advance from a computer illiterate.:p
> 
> 

You did not describe exactly what happens to your system now, but I 
think it is safe to say that the computer does not boot up cleanly, at 
minimum.  There are two things in an attempt to make sure that the hard 
drive is readable.  First, the hard disk manufacturer's diagnostics 
generally have a "repair" feature that replaces bad hard drive sectors 
with spares.  Then, the Windows chkdsk /F (/F is the command line 
parameter) run from the repair console verifies the integrity of the 
file system and does some of its own repairs of the data structures.

Once you have done this, you may be in good shape to read all the photos 
yourself.  Maybe.  Or the hard drive may be almost complete toast, at 
which point your only choice is to hire an expensive data recovery 
service to get your photos back.

So let's also assume that you replace the hard drive with another one, 
and reinstall Windows on the new hard drive.  Your next step is to 
either buy an empty external hard drive enclosure or buy a kit with a 
bare USB cable, drive connectors and a small power supply.  Attach the 
old drive and plug in the USB cable to get at your photos... Ben Myers